Friday, February 10, 2012

The Bill February 9, 2012

We're not going to dwell on the past. Instead we're going to gallop into the future as if this 'weekly' comic review feature has been published without major absences. Sound good? Good.

Let's do this thing!

Going Back to School:

Wolverine and The X-Men # 5
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Nick Bradshaw

I was done with the X-Books after Grant Morrison left. His run was the perfect blend of big, progressive ideas to keep me interested with a solid foothold in past continuity to make me feel like it meant something. To say I was upset with the near instant dismantling of all the cool new things he added to the mythos is putting things mildly. After that fiasco, I was certain that I never needed to read an X-Book ever again. That there would be no new book that would be able to attain that same level of manic creativity. And then Wolverine and The X-Men came out.

Holy. Shit.

This book ought to be a blueprint for how to make a successful X-Book - Nay, a comic book. Each new page is brimming with new ideas, new locations, and big visuals to match; it's a Morrisson book on meth, but 100% more accessible.

This issue picks up with Wolverine dealing with the financial realities of running the premiere mutant school in the Milky Way while the school in question is besieged by tiny Broodspawn. Also, Kitty deals with her magical insta-pregnancy and The Beast teaches a hands on Biology lesson by shrinking his students and hanging out in the body of their janitor. Like I said, the book is full of big ideas. Jason Aaron is totally knocking this book out of the park.

On the art side, Nick Bradshaw is giving the book a big, fresh look to go along with the writing. His stuff is, in the very best of ways, very comic book-y. And sure, at times, I find myself not liking his stuff as much as I want to, but I can't deny that he's delivering some fantastic pages.

I'm excited by this book in ways I haven't been excited in a while. It's a book that inspires as well as entertains, and I hope that it continues on like this for a good long time. I'm in no hurry for them to get back to the same ol' convoluted X-Men stories that got them here, but I am very excited to see them develop a whole new slew of classic stories for people to rip off for years to come.